


Mad Merlin and the Bartender of his (Slightly Crazy) Dreams

by thalialunacy



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-16
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-11-10 01:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/460908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalialunacy/pseuds/thalialunacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin is totally okay with stuffed animals talking to him. They don’t tell him to set anybody on fire, so it must be all right. Except for how it really, really isn’t. (Fusion with <i>Wonderfalls</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad Merlin and the Bartender of his (Slightly Crazy) Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Fusion with the show [_Wonderfalls_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361256/); I originally started it as an attempt at an entry for [summerpornathon](http://summerpornathon.livejournal.com), but it ran away from me and two hours later I just couldn’t bear to cut it. A lot of the dialogue is lifted from the series. Just… have fun with it, yeah? And watch the show if you can; it’s _genius_.

“I make good life choices,” Merlin protests, gesticulating rather wildly. “— mostly because they’re forced on me — but I make them, and I find myself in unpleasant situations all the time. You know why? Because even if you have a choice, it can and will be taken away from you. We’re all fate’s bitch. You might as well go ahead and bend over for destiny now.”

\---

So maybe Merlin had always been a little strange. And maybe talking to stuffed animals hadn’t been all that surprising of a development for him, considering he was over-educated and unemployable (just as predicted), lived in a caravan (not quite predicted, but at least he kept it clean), and hadn’t gotten off with anybody in ages, despite being modestly good looking, if he did say so himself (utterly predicted, unfortunately).

But when the animals (entirely un-alive animals, mind you… not that them being alive would’ve really helped much, but still) had started talking _back_ —

Well, he _should_ have been surprised.

But the real shocker was what they told him to do.

They all started out innocuous. Pull the string. Find the 20p. But pulling the string led to flipping the baby which led to finding the lost diamond ring and _saving_ the baby. And then there was that whole thing with the UPS guy meeting the woman of his dreams because the 20p led to a goiter which led to a nurse… and Merlin couldn’t even being to explain that one, even if he could kind of begin to explain the rest of them. Not too well, but kind of, at least. A little.

The new fit blonde bartender at Freya’s pub didn’t seem to mind, though, as Merlin sat there morosely talking in half sentences about animals and fate. (“I don't have a choice. I'm a puppet. The universe sticks its hand up my bum, and if I don't dance people get hurt.”) After a few drinks, Merlin realized something in Arthur’s back pocket was making a lot of noise. Something small and mobile-phone-shaped.

“Your arse is ringing,” he observed helpfully.

“My arse rings a lot,” Arthur confirmed.

Merlin found this fascinating. “Why do you have an arse if you don’t answer it?”

Arthur fished the phone out of his back pocket and held it up. _167 messages_ flashed. “Because the one doing the ringing is the same one who cheated on me on our honeymoon with my best friend?” And it started to ring again. Arthur sighed.

Merlin may have been just a touch drunk, because he held out his hand. Arthur raised an eyebrow, but gave the mobile over. “Arthur can't talk right now,” Merlin said matter-of-factly into the receiver, “because he's servicing me sexually.” Then he flipped the phone shut.

He was probably imagining the stars that appeared in Arthur’s eyes.

\---

A week later, Arthur casually asked, “So, did you defy the chicken?” and Merlin almost fell off the barstool where he’d been waiting for Freya. Then he remembered their drunken conversation (so what if he’d been the only one drunk, that was just details) and flinched.

“Uh-huh,” he finally answered.

“And how'd that work out for you?”

“I think I may have killed a man,” he replied honestly.

“Oh.” Arthur continued polishing glasses. “So not as well as we'd hoped, then?”

It was stupid, yes, but Merlin had never loved anyone so hard.

\--- 

Weeks passed, fake animals continued to talk to Merlin, Arthur continued to be charming, hot as fuck, and a little bit scarred in that way that just meant he was gorgeously capable of emotional depth, which scared Merlin half to death, frankly, because he wasn’t sure he could do the same, and life… Well, life continued. Mad as it was.

\---

The straw that broke the Merlin’s back (…so to speak) was when the tiny stuffed dragon told him to ring 999 from the pub’s phone and hang up.

“No!” Merlin shouted, beyond caring who heard. “I bloody well refuse!”

The dragon said nothing else. Merlin could see the smug smirk on its stupid little face. “No, I say!”

Nothing. Merlin stomped his foot. “Tell me why you talk to me, you stupid bastard!”

At this, the dragon stretched its wings. “Because... you listen.”

\---

So Merlin listened. Merlin listened, and listening led to Merlin helping a nun eat a lot of cheese, which led to the leaver of those 167 little messages coming back, begging forgiveness from Arthur, and… and getting it.

Arthur had asked Merlin for advice, and Merlin had seen the question in his eyes, but then he’d thought of the talking animals, and the caravan, and he’d thought, ‘I’m trying to save him,’ and said, “Go. Get your girl.”

And they’d gone off to pack for the flight an hour ago, and Merlin had gone exactly nowhere. He’d stayed on his bar stool, staring at the damn animatronic singing bass mounted on the wall. It had once told him to steal a lollipop from a toddler, an incident which had led to that toddler being found by his rightful parents, but this time it was staying unhelpfully silent.

Freya plopped down beside him and put an arm around him. “What’s wrong?”

“I let him go,” Merlin found himself saying. He’d always had a nice case of word-vomit when it came to Freya. Or, alright, anyone, really, but especially Freya. “I had to let him go, but I didn't want to let him go. I wanted to keep this one. Why can't I have nice things?” His eyes burned; he rubbed them. “I know there's that whole clause about letting somebody go and what it means if they come back and blah, blah, blah. But I already told him not to come back, fairly definitively. But what I really wanted to tell him was not to go.”

And then he was out of words. Freya rubbed his back and sighed. “Merlin, you are in love.”

Merlin’s face scrunched up. “Don't make fun of me.”

She smiled gently. “Do you love him?”

“…yes.” It was wobbly, but it was there.

“Is he gone?”

Merlin made a noise. “He's going.”

Freya gripped his shoulder, forcing Merlin to look her in the face. “Is... he... gone?” She shook him a little. “Is he?”

The bass suddenly spoke up. “Fly, you fool!”

Merlin stared at the bass. Stared at Freya. Stared at the bass some more.

Then he was out like a shot, the bar stool falling over in his wake.

\---

And that’s how things got here, to Merlin gesticulating wildly at a bemused Arthur, who is stood in the doorway of Gwen’s hotel room, where Merlin has found him after a mad dash. “And I know I just made it sound like destiny is raping me, and implying with my sudden appearance and my sentence structure that you’re destiny, and you are, but I really just meant that—”

“Merlin.”

“—that I _want_ destiny to bend me over, because that involves _you_ bending me over—”

“Oh for God’s sake—”

“Not that that’s _all_ I want! I’m pretty sure I love you, and that’s sort of a big deal, all right, because I’m emotionally constipated and quite possibly clinically insane, and you’re leaving with Gwen in a bit, and I get that, she’s your wife, but I couldn’t let you go without telling you, because—”

Arthur grabs onto Merlin’s shoulders and shakes. “ _Merlin_. For the love of all things holy, will you shut up and listen to me?”

Merlin’s mouth closes with a snap, and after a moment, he nods.

“Thank God.” Arthur lets go of him, and moves to open the door fully, and Merlin’s heart cracks, he can _feel_ it—

But Arthur’s opening the door to an empty room.

“She’s gone, Merlin,” he says quietly. “She’s gone and I’m not going with her.”

“You’re…not?”

“No, I’m not.”

“But--”

“But nothing.” He reaches out and tugs Merlin to him. “I hear I’ve got this destiny thing pretty well in hand here, and would like to enjoy it.”

Merlin absolutely does not immediately wrap his arms around Arthur like an anemone. “Yeah? Who told you that?”

Arthur cocks his head. “Hmm, let’s see. A singing bass? A stuffed lion. No! It was—”

He’s cut off by Merlin’s kiss.

"And they live happily ever after," says Arthur's stuffed bear cheerfully. 

_**fin** _


End file.
